A Matter of Circumstances
by KaydenceRei
Summary: When Bruce saw Natasha by chance in a crowd he realized that it wasn't because she was looking for him, because if Natasha knew he was there then he certainly would have never known she was there until she was standing right in front of him; something else had to be going on and Bruce figured out it was nothing good the moment he found her again. (Post Civil War, Bruce/Natasha.)
1. Chapter 1

This isn't a very long story, three chapters max. I might just smush the next to together and make it a simple two-shot with super long chapters. Just had to get this out of my brain before I got started on my sequel to In Ruins. Hope you enjoy **A Matter of Circumstances**.

 **Chapter 1** :

 _"The truth is a matter of circumstances;  
It's not all things to all people all the time,_  
 _And neither am I."_

Bruce had been gone for over almost two years, not that he wasn't aware of all that had transpired since he left after the battle with Ultron. Tony occasionally found him and called although the billionaire didn't actively seek him out and show up on his doorstep. Even so, each time Tony found him Bruce made it a point to go elsewhere because if Tony found him then someone else probably wouldn't be far behind. The accords made his need to be invisible even more necessary; he couldn't even trust himself with control over the Other Guy let alone trust the United Nations to make active decisions about how and when to use him.

The accords were also the reason why Bruce thought he was imagining things when he saw the familiar face of one Natasha Romanoff in a city marketplace in Ecuador. For a moment he wondered if she would actually actively hunt him down for whoever she worked for now, or he did wonder, up until he remembered Tony telling him she had 'gone double agent on him...again'.

He imagined she had her reasons for what she did, for letting Steve and the man who had shot her twice go free, just like he imagined she had her reasons for forcing him into the fight in Sokovia. It didn't mean he accepted that her reasons were good ones, or that he forgave her, but he accepted that _she_ believed she had a good reason. It was enough that he didn't outright hate her though admittedly she also wasn't his favorite person since what had transpired between them.

Unfortunately before his mind could decide if he had really just seen the redhead, that small glimpse of her was gone almost as soon as he had seen it and he frowned, heading in the same direction he had seen her moving. One thing he knew for certain was that _if_ he had actually just seen Natasha then she certainly didn't know he was here. She was a world class spy, an assassin; if Natasha was looking for him then he wouldn't know she was there until she was standing right in front of him.

It took almost ten minutes and Bruce was about to give up and call it a false alarm when he saw her again. She was at an alleyway, glancing around discreetly as she pretended to adjust the hood of her thin hooded and long-sleeved shirt, then she disappeared into the alleyway like it was the most natural place to be going.

His assumption was that she knew she was being followed, after all, she was a master of subterfuge and being unseen even when she was the most vibrant thing around for miles. It was a skill he could never understand, how someone who looked like her could make herself obsolete and forgettable, how she could either walk through a room and be the most exquisite person someone ever laid eyes on or just another face in the background depending on how she carried herself.

Which is why she had to know she was being followed, though Bruce supposed she didn't imagine on any level that it might be him and he hadn't thought that maybe she was being followed by more than just him. He found that out when he came across the squabble.

It stunned him momentarily and all he could do was stand and watch as she fought with only one hand, her other arm hanging uselessly at her side as she maneuvered. Five men were already motionless on the ground but he wondered why she wouldn't just shoot rather than fight one-handed—he had never known her not to have a gun.

Bruce moved to step forward when his foot hit something and he glanced down. The slick black pistol laid at his feet. That explained why she wasn't shooting and he frowned in an instant when her grunt met his ears. He glanced up to see two of the men still left standing had Natasha pinned against the brick building of the alleyway while a third man stood, growled something out at her in a language he didn't quite catch. His gaze shifted to the gun at his feet again before he looked back at the scene before him.

Natasha held no fear in her eyes, though he knew she was afraid. He could smell the fear radiating off of her because of the grumbling of the Other Guy in the back of his head, however that fear was being expertly veiled behind layers of disciplined indifference. She merely stood there and stared as the man gripped her throat between the fingers of one hand and placed a gun of his own to her forehead. She looked death in the face, terrified to her very core, and acted like it was just another Tuesday afternoon.

What happened next happened before he could comprehend it. The gunshot rang out, louder than he thought it would, and he realized that was because it had come from Natasha's gun in _his_ hand.

Bruce wasn't sure who was more surprised when the man with the gun dropped to the ground sputtering; Bruce himself, Natasha, or the two men holding her against the building.

Her good hand was deft as she slipped the knife from one of the men and then jabbed it into his chest because shock and awe had loosened his grip on her. His full release of her good arm meant she swiftly took care of the other man as well and Bruce glanced down at the gun in his hand as he lowered it. When he looked over she hadn't moved, Natasha was instead leaning against the wall and staring back at him with a slightly wide-eyed look of wonder and bewilderment.

It seemed she really hadn't known that he was here because her surprise looked genuine.

Bruce didn't often believe in coincidences but he had a feeling that Natasha didn't quite believe in them either. It was likely the reason why neither of them quite knew what to do. The distant yelling in that same foreign language warned him that apparently the half a dozen men dead in the alley weren't the only ones after her and he got over his distaste for the gun, for the fact that he had shot a man, though he felt a little better when he moved towards Natasha and realized the man he shot wasn't dead. He certainly didn't look good but he wasn't dead.

He took in her arm fully now, saw that it was twisted at the wrist in an almost unruly way but also that she was now holding it with her good arm at the elbow. It meant the wrist probably wasn't the only problem in that arm and he needed to look at it more thoroughly, though here and now was _not_ the time as yelling, that he now recognized as German, got closer to them.

"Come on," he told her as he shoved the gun into the waistline of his pants and pulling his shirt down over it. He eased his hand to the small of her back before guiding her in the opposite direction of the voices. The one good thing about learning to lay low was also learning every possible turn for where you were currently located. He had never actually needed to use any of the unexpected little nooks and crannies between different buildings before this moment but his preparation in case he needed to make an escape at some point came in surprisingly handy.

Natasha didn't fight him on him ushering her around which told him more than her useless arm ever could. He didn't know how long she had been running, evading and fighting her pursuers but if she was following him, not questioning that he knew what he was doing and where he was going, then he imagined she wasn't just injured but also thoroughly exhausted.

Forty-five minutes later and dozens, probably near a hundred different paths and alleyways were traversed before Bruce ushered her onto a trolley that would bring them to where he had been living the last few months.

They went unnoticed on the trolley, Natasha's subterfuge once again proving faultless even under the circumstances and Bruce—well, he thrived on his ability to be unseen. No one gave them a second glance, hell, hardly anyone gave them a first one. People didn't tend to notice others who were minding their own business, though Bruce could see Natasha's eyes taking in every single person on the trolley even when no one else noticed.

He had only spoken those two words to her while she had yet to speak even one during their rather unexpected escape into the shadows. She seemed to read his movements because she moved when he did and they got off the trolley as inconspicuously as they had gotten on, with no one caring or remembering that they had ever even been there.

No one paid them any mind as Bruce led Natasha into the rundown little building he had considered somewhat of a home for the last few months, he wasn't sure anyone had ever really noticed him at all in the first place. He shut the door behind them before he pulled her gun from where he had tucked it earlier, placing it down on the table and then forcing her to sit down on the beaten up couch.

She wasn't looking at him yet and he raised his hands to pull the hood down off of her head. He was surprised to see that her hair was more chestnut than red in subtle waves just passed her shoulders, though the red still seeped through the brown to give it some of its former vibrancy. The impression of fingers were still on her throat, an ugly little bruise marred the skin just at the corner of one eye, a tiny cut had dried blood just over one eyebrow, but none of those were as horrifying as the final thing he noticed. There were two tiny and somewhat healed indentations on each temple where it seemed like thick needles, or something along those lines, had been _in_ her skin. All that loathing he had held for her before faded the moment he realized something terrible must have happened because when he finally met her eyes; and he saw absolutely nothing within them.

"Let go of your arm so I can take a look at it," Bruce finally told her.

Natasha was studying him silently as she relented and removed her good arm from the bad one. She didn't react as he gently pulled her sleeve up and he grimaced at the color of her wrist alone. Deep blues, purples and reds circled her wrist in one large and nasty bruise to go along with it's displacement. It was when he got the sleeve up past her elbow that he saw the flicker in her eyes, the immediate pain that she couldn't quite hide. He felt with his hands around her elbow until he felt the spot that was out of place, a bone that wasn't just broken but out of place just below where her arm could, or rather should, bend. Then his eyes landed on a perfect three inch long bruise that he recognized as bruising from being restrained far too tightly.

"I don't have anything more than tylenol," he warned her, avoiding the topic of what happened to her for the moment so he could deal with the more pressing issues.

"It's fine," she spoke for the first time and her voice sounded nothing like he remembered.

Her 's' had slurred a little and her voice was quiet and raspy, void of any hint of emotion, so he raised one finger in front of her eyes before he gave the verbal order, "Follow." She did as he said but she couldn't keep up even with his finger's slow movements and he frowned as he asked the question he didn't want to know the answer to, "When and how hard did you hit your head?"

"Yesterday," she answered, "and I'm assuming hard enough that it's an issue."

Bruce sighed as he shifted back to her arm. "A concussion, a pretty bad one. And you broke your arm in two places. I'm going to align the top first, then your wrist," he warned her, "you ready?"

"Does it matter?" she asked without much care.

He supposed it didn't. He grimaced a little as he gripped her arm just above the elbow, then got his other hand into place under it. The subtle release of air left her lips quietly just at him tightening his grasp and the actual resetting of the top break brought out a gasp, her eyes glistened a little, but that was it. He could never decide until this moment if people's screams were worse or if the sounds of bones setting were worse, but this time almost all he heard was the bone and he decided that was worse.

"It's fine, just do the other," she said before he even had to ask.

Bruce inclined his head a little before he shifted his hand to her wrist. Again they went through the exact same thing, the exact same noises and reactions, and when he looked back up at her face he swore she wasn't breathing when she finally released a few shaky breaths. "Stay here," he told her before he stood up and moved into the other room.

It took some digging to find anything even remotely useful. He hadn't done anything medically related in a long time but finally he gathered up things he could use. She was watching him with the most intense gaze as he sat down beside her and dropped the armful of random objects down. Her eyebrow quirked up slightly when he broke the bottom rod off a wooden clothes hanger and measured it up against her arm but she didn't question it as he took her good hand and made her hold the wooden rod in place.

"Sorry," he offered up pathetically, "I wasn't exactly prepared to set bones."

"You're helping me," Natasha reminded him, though still her tone held no semblance of caring one way or the other, "so if you want to make a splint out of a clothes hanger then by all means, do it."

He supposed that was fair enough so he shrugged a little as he pulled out the only actual medical item he had. He put the medical tape around her arm and the hanger in five places before he tossed it aside and pulled the sleeve of her shirt back down over the splint.

Natasha just watched him in silence again while he ripped one of his shirts that he had brought with the pile, then she continued watching as he tied two of the longer pieces together before he put her arm in the fabric, looped one end under her arm, over her shoulder, and then he tied it the other piece by her hand.

It wasn't the world's best sling but it was certainly effective.

"Why are you doing this?"

The question took him by surprise and Bruce met her gaze again with a frown. "Why wouldn't I?" he asked after getting over the slight hurt he felt that she seemed to think he _wouldn't_ have helped her. She seemed more confused than he felt and suddenly the void in her eyes clicked and he realized he had never seen any hint of recognition within them since they came across each other. "You don't know who I am, do you?" he dared to question and his voice came out strained.

Natasha's head tilted ever so slightly to the side as she studied him in silence for well over a minute. Her eyes seemed to be taking in every inch of his face, every detail, then she shook her head, "Am I supposed to?"

Bruce's response of telling her 'yes' died on the tip of his tongue and went to a more medically important one, "Do you know your name?"

Her mouth opened slightly before she stopped and blinked several times. Finally words left her lips again but it was mumbling, almost incoherent, "M-my name?"

He felt his heart drop right into his stomach. "That's okay..." he told her softly.

"My name..." she murmured again. "M-my name..." and it was coming out a little frantic, confused even.

Bruce encased her face gently within his hands before giving her what she was looking for, "Natasha."

She paused, staring at him in wonder before she repeated it, tested it on her own tongue, "Natasha." Finally she gave the barest of nods, seeming to accept it as familiar. "And...I know you?" she brought up again.

He nodded before he remembered she _didn't_ know him even if she _did_ know him. "Bruce," he finally told her.

"Why are you looking at me like that...Bruce?" she asked and his name sounded odd from her lips as she tested that out as well.

He realized his hands lingered on her face for far too long and he pulled them away quickly. "It's just—what happened to you?" he asked as his brow furrowed. Natasha didn't give him an answer, or maybe she didn't know the answer, so he relented and asked the more important question, "Alright...where else are you hurt?"

"That's rather presumptuous."

Bruce shook his head, "Not really. I was able to follow you, not just them. So where else are you hurt?"

She seemed to relent, and although her eyes seemed somewhat confused by what he meant, still she inclined her head ever so slightly before she answered him, "Gunshot to the abdomen, ironically right through a previous one, but I already got the bullet out and stitched it up. Got nicked in the calf and thigh of my left leg with a knife last night, they aren't bleeding anymore though. Think I have a few bruised ribs too."

That was all so—nonchalant. She said it like it made absolutely no difference and he stared at her openly. "Who are they?" he finally asked her, "those people that were about to kill you? The ones still looking for you? Who are they?"

"I...don't know," she admitted.

Of course she didn't, she didn't seem to know anything—except she seemed to remember how to protect herself, how to fight. Bruce rubbed at his face for a moment before he let himself deal with the other injuries. "Let me see that gunshot first," he finally told her with a sigh. She lifted her shirt and he flinched at her shoddy stitch work, even more so at seeing another perfect three inch wide bruise going horizontal all the way across her upper hip line. "Do you feel alright? Dizziness? Nausea?" he asked as he pressed his fingertips around the gunshot wound.

"I'm fine."

Bruce smiled a little sadly at the response, one she probably would have given as her usual self as well, and then he pulled the rubbing alcohol from the pile of gathered goodies along with the cotton balls. He dabbed them in the alcohol before he started cleaning the stitches. "You know I wasn't sure who was more surprised in that alley; me, you or those guys about to kill you," he quipped rather pathetically. He didn't know what else to actually say but the silence was was too consuming, too stale, too uncomfortable between them.

But for the first time he saw her lips curl upward into somewhat of a smile and he had forgotten what it actually looked like after so long. "I didn't get the chance to thank you back there and I haven't done it yet—"

"You don't have to thank me," Bruce told her as he cleaned it more thoroughly. It looked to him like she'd stitched it and then ignored it, or perhaps she never had time to properly take care of it. He was almost afraid to ask about the 'nicks' on her leg.

Natasha looked curious, "Are we friends?"

He avoided the question, pretending he hadn't heard it. "You were scared to die," he stated without daring to look up, "you didn't show it but...you were terrified."

Natasha was eerily silent for too long and he finally looked up at her. She was looking anywhere but at him when the words left her lips, "I wasn't scared to die. Well, maybe a little but that wasn't..." She met his eyes again and the smile from before was long gone now, instead her lips were pursed into a thin line. "How do you even know?" she finally questioned him.

Bruce supposed that telling her that he could turn into a giant green rage monster, that said monster could smell the fear radiating off of her—feel the reverberations of her heart racing with terror, he supposed that wouldn't go over all that well so he didn't tell her that. Instead he painted over the truth with an option that was easier to accept, a term Natasha herself liked to use rather than say 'lie'. "Because I know you," he reminded her again, "so tell me...what was scarier than death?"

"The fact that they _weren't_ going to kill me," Natasha admitted.

He paused in an instant as he jerked his head back over to look at her. "He had a gun to your head," he pointed out.

"And the one on the left had a needle, a sedative," she informed him with a shake of her head. "They were going to take me back, I can't go back—I won't go back there," she told him, her voice sounding almost desperate in a way he hadn't heard before.

"Where, Natasha? Take you back where?" Bruce asked her as he pressed his hands over her ribs slowly while watching her face for any visible reaction. She didn't answer and he couldn't imagine what they had done that hollowed her out so much that she couldn't figure out how to fill herself back in, that she couldn't find the pieces to the puzzle of her own life. He went over each rib meticulously but she didn't flinch and he didn't notice any displacement. He imagined she was right about it just being bruised so he relented and pulled her shirt back down.

"Have you done that before?" Natasha questioned out of the blue, ignoring his question just as he had hers about them being friends.

Bruce frowned for a moment, "Done what?"

"Touched me."

He pulled his hands away from her almost as if he had been burned and he opened and closed his mouth several times, stunned further into silence when she reached forward and gripped one of his hands.

She placed his hand along the side of her own face and Bruce swallowed dryly before she explained herself, "This—this felt familiar." She took him by surprise much like she had done on many occasions well over a year ago and his breath caught at her next words, " _You_ feel familiar but I—I can't place it, place you, place your face."

Bruce realized rather suddenly that she was playing him, playing off of what she was reading from him. She was deflecting his question by using former feelings, feelings he assumed she could sense from him, and then mirroring them to distract him. It almost worked. She almost evoked it all to the surface again and he took a breath before he smiled a little sadly and pushed her hair out of her face. "Nice try," he mumbled out and there was a ghost of a smile on her lips when he called her on it, "but the question still stands."

Her eyes were cold again now and Bruce almost regretted it. "I don't _know_ who they are, or where I was, or where I am now," she told him as her voice mirrored the frigidness in her eyes, "I woke up a few days ago, strapped to a metal table, or that's the first thing I really remember anyways. I couldn't move, not my head, not my arms, not my hands, or my legs. I couldn't move."

He couldn't quite imagine what that would do to a person who didn't know or understand what was going on. He settled his hand back onto her face with worry and concern, his thumb slowly moving across soft skin. "What did they do to you, Natasha?" he asked more gently this time.

Her heart was beating rapidly again, he could feel it and hear it even as her face showed none of the signs. Finally she gave an answer, one that haunted him, "It hurt. I don't...know what they were doing—but it hurt...everything hurt. Trying to remember _hurts_ and I couldn't move, I couldn't move..."

Bruce released a weary breath before he gave in, pulled her closer and put his arms around her while being cautious of her arm. She was stiff as a board, as guarded against physical attempts at comfort as she had always been. He didn't think she would ever relax but after several painstakingly long minutes her shoulders lowered slightly in a form of acceptance. It wasn't much but it also wasn't nothing so he was glad now that he had done it.

Her concussion, her injuries, her exhaustion. He pulled out of the awkward embrace and she was staring at him, her eyes much softer than they had been at any point before now. He supposed that hugging her had been the right move even if it had been the strangest one. "You need to lay down," he told her, "I won't ask anything else today...I promise. But you do need to lay down, get some sleep after I'm done checking you over."

"You don't have to do this," Natasha assured him, "I'm fine, I can go. I can take care of myself."

He narrowed his eyes at her, "That's not going to happen. If I let you leave like this, Natasha, then whoever they are will get you just like they almost did before. I couldn't live with that."

"They said I was a weapon," she told him out of nowhere, "that I was broken, that they would fix me." There it was, the slightest fear behind her eyes making an appearance as she asked him a question, "Are they right? Am I just a weapon?"

"No," Bruce told her quickly, "no, you're not." He wanted to touch her again but he wasn't sure how she might react if he kept on doing it. For someone who didn't remember him she was being remarkably lenient with letting him do as he pleased, more so than he had known her to be in the past when she was fully functioning. "You're every inch a person," he assured her after a beat, "every single part of you."

Natasha's eyes were empty again as she looked back at him and he hated the sight of it. Her words caught him off guard though, giving him a little more of the story but not nearly enough, "There was some metal tray next to the table, knives and scalpels with blood on them, and a window where people watched from the other side as they poked and prodded at me." The imagery ended there and then she was back to her idea of leaving, "I should go. They'll find me here. They'll always find me."

He didn't doubt that, though he imagined that it would take them some time given they had no idea where she went or who she went with. "They'll be checking to see if you go back to wherever you were staying first," he told her, "we've got a day or two before they make it this far across the city looking for you. So rest here and I'll figure out where we can go from here while you get some sleep."

"We?"

"You don't have to do this alone," Bruce told her, "I won't let you."

Natasha didn't respond to that verbally though she did seem to be mulling the idea over in her head.

"But before you go lay down I want to take a look at those knife wounds on your leg," he told her.

She inclined her head just slightly before she stood up and Bruce averted his eyes as she unbuttoned the black cargo pants that she wore and started to shimmy them down. "You can look, I mean I don't really have much to be shy about after being strapped half naked to a table," she informed him nonchalantly.

Bruce couldn't bring himself to do it even with her permission and instead he sighed as he stood up and moved to a pile of folded laundry he had never put away. He dug through it until he found a pair of boxers before he held them out to her without actually looking at her. He only had to wait a moment before her fingertips brushed his and the fabric left his hands within seconds.

"Alright, they're on," she informed him after a beat, "although I seem to have been wrong about the bleeding."

He turned his head in an instant and saw her standing by the couch, clearly uncertain what she should do because she didn't seem to want to sit down again. He shifted his eyes down to her legs and cringed as she stood barefoot now. Another set of bruising from being strapped down went across her thighs, then another set over her calves, and finally a set on her ankles. They had certainly been meticulous with how tightly they kept her tied to that table and yet still she had somehow gotten out from under her keepers' thumbs.

"I don't want to bleed on your couch," she told him.

Her voice brought Bruce back out of his horror at her bruising and he shifted his eyes to the ugly and jagged gash across her thigh. He had a feeling she hadn't been wrong about the bleeding, that it _had_ actually stopped, but only because it had welded itself to the inside of those cargo pants she was wearing. The moment she took them off it seemed she had reopened the wound because it was bleeding in a steady stream now. "The couch isn't what's important here, you are," he told her, "sit."

Natasha seemed hesitant to do so but finally she relented and sat down. He sat down as well and angled her to face him before he pulled her leg over his lap and reached down for that rubbing alcohol again. The second wound on her calf actually was just a 'nick' as she had called it earlier so he ignored that one as he put one hand to the one that was bleeding profusely across the bruise on her thigh.

"This is going to hurt like a bitch," he warned her, though given how well she took him setting two bones then he imagined this would be a cakewalk. He twisted the cap off the rubbing alcohol with one hand, looked her in the eye, then forced himself to pour it over the gash. He faltered when she writhed under the stream of it, when he saw her hands grip the couch so tightly that her knuckles turned white. He didn't stop until he stopped seeing dirt clear off the skin along with the blood and then he picked up a towel out of his pile of laundry and pressed it over top, taking her hands and pushing those down on top of it. "Hold that down," he ordered next.

"Okay."

He leaned over next to get the sewing kit. It wasn't sutures but it was all he had and that gash was too deep and jagged to leave alone. "This is going to be a lot worse than stitches," he explained, "I'm sorry." Natasha's hands were still pressing the towel to her thigh and Bruce grimaced when he saw how pale she was and just how much she was trembling. Apparently he'd been wrong about which wound was worse to take care of and so he put the sewing kit down before he gently eased his hands over top of hers. "Hey...you just need to keep breathing," he told her softly.

 _Bing_.

Bruce grimaced at the way Natasha jumped at the sudden intrusion of noise and she looked ready to fight before he moved one hand to her shoulder to calm her. He shifted his gaze to the computer screen just a few feet away and he knew it would only take a moment before Tony hacked the web-cam on it simply because he could rather than waiting for Bruce to answer. "Someone's about to pop up on a video call," he warned her quickly, "but he's—he's a friend, don't worry about it, alright?"

The look in her eyes was a fear of betrayal but she gave a curt nod nonetheless that didn't make him feel a hell of a lot better.

"I promise, Natasha," he tacked on.

The intensity of those green eyes was mind-blowing but finally her expression softened just slightly.

" _Bruce_."

And there it was.

Bruce glanced over at the computer screen as it started loading up the video as well and he sighed. "Tony," he answered.

The bright side about a terrible connection was that it was taking a decently long time to go through but that also meant that Tony said something stupid and at such a high rate of speed that Bruce couldn't stop him, " _So, I found you. Also figured I'd let you know that I've been hearing some odd stories that your least favorite Russian is in the vicinity. Thought you might appreciate the warning in case you ran into her—_ " the video screen came to life and Bruce could see the gobsmacked look on the billionaire's face, " _or maybe she already found you. What's shakin', Red? How's the fugitive life? Is it anything like the movies?_ "

Bruce felt Natasha stiffen immediately and he gave her a light squeeze to her shoulder and an apologetic look before he turned back to the computer screen, "Tony...I was actually going to call you."

He wasn't sure if Tony could see the stiffness in Natasha or if maybe Bruce telling him that he had been near to calling him set the warning bells off, but either way Tony caught on to there being a problem, " _I take it you two aren't just catching up on how to hide the zucchini?_ " Bruce kept quiet for a moment, trying to gauge Natasha's mood now, but other than being stiff as a board she gave no indication of anything. He shifted more out of the way and he heard the billionaire suck in a breath before he spoke, " _What the hell?_ "

"Tony, when was the last time you saw or heard from her?" Bruce dared to ask and he sincerely hoped he wasn't about to get the answer he thought he might.

" _Not since she walked away from me back in New York,_ " Tony answered with a frown, " _what the hell happened to you, Natasha?_ "

Her eyes shifted to Tony on the computer screen before they looked to Bruce himself. She looked guarded for the first time since he had found her and he really wished Tony hadn't called, or at least hadn't called yet.

Finally Bruce spoke, "Tony, she has no memory. She has no idea who you are, who I am—who she is. Tell me you know _somewhere_ that she's been since then because that was six months ago."

He saw Tony's lips purse shut for a moment before he spoke, " _Two months ago she was in Beijing. That's the last location I had on her though, after that she just disappeared completely off the grid. It one hell of a Houdini act...or so I thought._ "

Bruce released a sigh but he supposed two months was better than six, though not by much. Even so he was afraid if Tony stayed on the line much longer then Natasha might run for it because she was looking like she was about to go into flight mode. "Tony, let me call you back..." he finally called out to the computer.

There was silence for a beat before his friend responded, " _Alright._ "

The computer shut down and Bruce assumed that was Tony's doing so he turned back to Natasha.

"I take it I'm your least favorite Russian?" she questioned with that air of indifference that had always bugged him in the past.

Bruce swallowed dryly for a moment before he picked the sewing kit back up and gently lifted her hand and the towel from her leg. It was stained red but they had staunched the bleeding enough that he could actually start working on it...if she was even going to let him now.

"What did I do to you?"

He glanced back up to meet her gaze again and frowned. "It's not important," he told her, "your leg however _is_ important."

She gripped his wrist tightly when he went to open up the sewing kit and he sighed when she asked her next question, "Do you hate me?"

"No I—no..." Bruce assured her. "Natasha, there was—we..." he couldn't quite find the words to explain it. How could he? He hadn't told her about The Hulk so how could he tell her what she did to him?

"We were together?"

"Ye—no..." an even harder question that had him further frustrated and he gave the only answer he could think, "sort of...and I don't hate you, I swear."

Natasha gave the smallest of nods before she released his hand and she remained silent as he opened the sewing kit once more.

"Any color preference?" Bruce asked her.

He must have kept too straight of a face because she blinked at him several times before making an admittance, "I don't know..."

Bruce hadn't meant for her to take him seriously and he gave her a sad little smile. "I was only kidding..." he told her quickly, "trying to lighten the mood." She only looked more confused and he sighed, "Yeah...you always used to tell me I made pretty terrible jokes." He gave Natasha credit when she raised one corner of her lips into a slanted little smile that he almost recognized. It made him give his first real smile in what felt like forever and the words came out before he could help himself, "That's the smile I remember."

A unique softness came over her entire demeanor; it was in her eyes, her posture and finally her voice, "Are you always such a nice guy or are girls with memory loss just your Achilles heel?"

He chuckled a little before he shrugged, "I'm probably not the best person to ask."

Natasha didn't do more than suck in a breath when he first broke skin with the needle and yet somehow that softness didn't leave her face as she watched him. "So you actually are just a nice guy," she finally decided after a few minutes of him threading her skin together.

She probably wouldn't think so if he told her the truth about things between them; how things ended between them as abruptly as they had started. He knew she had caught on early on that there had been something between them even though he avoided answering her when she asked.

"I guess I dodged a bullet when you came into that alley," Natasha mentioned. A moment later she shifted, grimaced at the pain in her stomach, then snickered, "Well, figuratively speaking anyways."

An actual laugh burst from his own lips and she gave him a rather coy look with a sideways little smirk. Finally he stopped stitching and put everything away before he taped some gauze over top of it. "Alright, that's everything—at least I hope that's everything," he pointed out and she gave a nod. "I wasn't kidding about you going and getting some sleep, Natasha," he tacked on for good measure. His hand was resting on her knee just under another of those 3-inch wide bruises on her thigh and he must have stared at it for far too long because Natasha was eerily silent as he did so. "You didn't deserve this," he mumbled out before he could stop himself.

Natasha ignored that, "Am I sleeping on here?"

Bruce realized she meant the couch and he shook his head, "No...no of course not. You're not sleeping on a bloody couch." He stood and helped her up from the couch before pointing, "First door right there is the bedroom. Go ahead."

She was hesitant to go where she couldn't see the door and he nudged her with his elbow, "I'll keep an eye out, I promise. Just don't go trying to ninja your way out the closest window when you're in there because—well because they're really tiny windows and while you're the tiniest person I've ever seen that can kick someone's ass...you'll still pop stitches trying to do that and that'll just annoy me when I have to fix you again."

Natasha chuckled before she inclined her head slightly in agreement, "Alright." He was starting to clean up when she paused in the doorway to his bedroom and said his name, "Bruce?"

"Yeah?" he questioned, glancing over at her.

"Thank you..."

Bruce realized in an instant that to her, in this very moment, he was the first person to help her rather than hurt her. She was already in the room before he whispered the response, "Always..."

He spent the next little while cleaning everything up before he glanced at the open door of his bedroom. To his relief Natasha was still there, though from what he could tell she wasn't sleeping, something he had learned to notice about her from their time as Avengers together. For her sake he ignored it and just hoped she might find it in her to relax and get a little bit of rest, so instead he took a seat at the computer and called back his favorite intrusive billionaire.

And it didn't take long to get an answer either.

"Bruce," came Tony's instant greeting before the video ever came to life.

* * *

Natasha, the name this Bruce character had told her was hers, laid on the bed and listened in silence as Bruce once again restarted his conversation with his friend. Something inside her told her that Bruce was alright, it wasn't to say she trusted the man, but she believed that he truly wanted to help her despite that it was risky to himself. It also wasn't to say that she would let him continue to put himself in further danger.

Bruce saved her life and now she had to return the favor by getting out of his home before she got him killed.

Except his eyes kept flickering in her direction every minute or two when he'd been cleaning up after fixing her up. She had a feeling he knew she was going to bail, it was probably the reason he gave he that warning about the window, and to be honest it _was_ a rather small window. It was definitely possible for her to get out through it but he probably wasn't wrong about her ruining all the stitch work he had done while doing it.

"Red already take off on you?" she heard Tony question.

"Not yet, she's laying down," Bruce replied. "Tony...I know the last time the two of you talked wasn't exactly on the best terms but—"

"But she needs help," Tony finished for him, "I mean Nat and I may not see eye to eye, hell, we probably never will but that doesn't mean she's not still my friend."

A rather large sigh came from Bruce and Natasha frowned at hearing it, then she grimaced a little at his words, "Tony...she's been tortured, shot, stabbed. She doesn't even know what they want or who they are let alone who she is or who I am..."

"Look, I can get you a place to lay low but—well, I've got Ross on my ass watching me like a hawk..."

"Which means we're on our own getting there."

"Exactly," Tony agreed, "me coming to help will only cause her more problems if Ross catches wind of it, he wants her arrested for breaking the accords by letting Cap and Barnes escape."

There was silence for a few seconds before Bruce replied, "And what about you? How are you uh...dealing?"

Natasha sighed lightly to herself before she decided to make her escape. Apparently she'd caused enough trouble for Bruce's friend already, she didn't need to add to that by causing further trouble for Bruce. The man had gone to more than trouble enough trying to help her already.

Fortunately he was thoroughly occupied with his conversation with Tony so she slipped out of the bed and over to the window. She eased the window open with complete silence before she glanced back at the open door and the mumbling on the other side of it. She couldn't remember Bruce but something told her that he would be angry with himself when he realized she was gone and that he hadn't checked to see if she was still there while he talked to his friend.

But it was definitely better this way.

* * *

Bruce had been sorting out the details with Tony for a while, probably for too long, when he realized he hadn't looked at Natasha since the conversation started. He glanced back at the room before turning back to Tony and instantly shifted back towards the room for a double take.

Natasha was gone.

"Dammit!" he growled out as he stood up and went to the bedroom doorway.

"What?"

"She's gone," Bruce mumbled out as he rubbed at his face. He moved into the room and glanced at the open window. A couple drops of blood on the window told him she probably did pop at least one stitch to make the escape but nothing too serious. He placed his hand on the bed where she had been laying but it was cold. Natasha had been gone for a while and Bruce moved back to the computer and sat down before he asked a question, "How long have we been talking?"

Tony seemed to be thinking about it for a moment before he answered, "Maybe an hour."

"Tony..."

"I'll find her," the billionaire told him in an instant, "and I'll call you the minute I do."

Bruce groaned as Tony turned off the video call and he put his face in his hands. He couldn't believe that while he'd made sure to keep himself facing the front door in case anyone did find them, he hadn't kept looking to make sure the woman he'd been trying to save was even still there to be saved.

It wasn't that he hadn't expected her to run off, he'd called it before she had even gone into the room. It also wasn't as though paying more attention would have stopped it from happening. He reminded himself again that she was a master in the spy world.

If Natasha wanted out then he never stood a chance at stopping her let alone seeing it happen. Her memory may have been gone but her skills were dead on.

* * *

 **Hope you guys have enjoyed the first half of the story!  
**

 **-Kay**


	2. Chapter 2

Here's the second and last part to this not-so-short story!

 **Chapter 2** :

" _Every person has truth in his heart. No  
matter how complicated his circumstances,  
no matter how others look at him from the  
outside, and no matter how deep or shallow  
the truth dwells in his heart; eventually the  
truth will gush forth like a geyser."_

Bruce was driving himself crazy for the next six hours before his computer sprang to life with a video call from Tony again. Even for Tony six hours was impressive for finding someone, especially for finding Natasha when she didn't want to be found. He waited with bated breath for Tony to speak but the words that came from his best friend were unexpected.

"Bruce, please tell me you have a TV in that craphut you've been calling home."

He ruffled his eyebrow before he replied, "Yeah."

"Then you better turn it on, I don't think it matters what news channel...trust me, this is bad."

He had a sinking feeling growing like a dark pit in his stomach as he leaned over and flicked the TV on. Tony wasn't wrong, it was there and it was _bad_.

"— _taken into custody after the German military forced the Ecuadoran government to help in her detainment. The crowd behind us is_ not _happy seeing someone they consider a world hero being arrested either."_

Bruce frowned as he watched the men dragging one very determined Natasha Romanoff towards a truck. Her broken wrist was bound behind her to her good one, her mouth was taped shut, but none of that stopped her from struggling enough that it took four men to drag her.

"Bruce...that's not all," Tony told him, "not only did I hack in and figure out where they're taking her—I also found out why."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" he murmured out as he ran his hand through his hair.

Tony was quiet as he smacked his lips open and then closed again. "It was never supposed to be used like this—this isn't what we signed the Accords for..." he finally heaved out with sadness.

"Tony, just tell me what you're talking about," he ordered his best friend.

"I hacked into the United Nations once I realized that somehow the German's got the Ecuadoran's to help them take her into custody," Tony explained, "I realized quickly enough there's only one reason why. I found this video and before I send it—don't turn green. It's bad."

Bruce waited, tapping his foot on the floor as the video Tony sent finally came through. It started playing the second he clicked on it and there was Natasha. The redhead was laid out on a metal table and he found the source of those three-inch wide bruises quickly enough. Near a dozen metal latches arched over her body to keep her in place on the table, not allowing her to move even the slightest bit.

" _You're making this more difficult than it needs to be, Miss Romanoff. You signed the accords, then you broke them,"_ a man's voice stated over the video, " _you must know where we can find Captain Rogers, Barnes and all the others that helped those two since their escape from custody."_

" _Go to hell_ ," and Bruce knew that response was coming. Natasha would never give up her friends' locations to help herself, especially not Clint's, whether she knew them or not.

The man chuckled though, " _I don't think you understand. You signed yourself over to the United Nations under the Accords. You go where they want when they see necessary. They gave you to us and now you're nothing more than a weapon to be used how we see fit."_

" _Oh, I understand completely. And you can still burn in hell."_

Bruce could feel the anger growing, it burned and seethed even further when he saw a man stick a probe into each side of her head. The way the redhead's body tensed but was unable to really move because of the way she was strapped down had him losing control.

"Bruce...they're taking her to a facility on an island just off the southern coast of Ecuador called Isla Verde." He saw Tony rubbing at his face and he knew the billionaire was blaming himself now. "This isn't—this isn't how the Accords were supposed to be used. Nat signed those because she saw it as a way to keep fighting to help people even if it wasn't under our own terms, because then at least we were still able to help and still doing it together until we could figure out a better way," his friend explained. "So scratch what I said about not coming there to help. I'm coming. Ross and the United Nations can kiss my ass and shove the Accords up their own."

"Tony—" he was about to try and stop him from getting involved even though he knew it was useless.

"I've got nothing to lose, Bruce. No Avengers. No Pepper. So screw it," the billionaire informed him, "I've got a plan if you're ready to listen."

Bruce knew better than to disagree, "I'm listening."

* * *

If there was one thing Bruce was now glad that Natasha had taught him, it was how to pick a pocket from even the most suspecting of victims. He'd never forget it, mostly because it was just supposed to be a joke so Natasha could play a prank on Clint.

 _Two and a half years ago..._

" _Come on, Bruce. Just imagine that smug face being turned upside down when Barton realizes you picked his pocket."_

 _Bruce quirked an eyebrow up at her, "That seems like a really bad idea."_

" _Oh no, it's brilliant," Natasha insisted with an impish smile. "You're probably the last person he'd expect to even try and do something like this, hell, he'd probably suspect Cap before he suspected you."_

 _Bruce wrinkled his brow as he stared at her. It was the most amused and playful he had ever seen the redhead and she seemed absolutely determined to do this. "I'm not entirely sure that's a compliment," he mumbled out with a sigh._

 _Natasha chuckled, "Of course it's a compliment, Doc. It means you're a nice guy." She sipped at an orange juice that he was positive was spiked with vodka before she spoke again, "Plus you've got that air about you where people overlook you. That's a good quality for spywork."_

" _I'm not a spy," he reminded her._

 _She shrugged, "Semantics. It could come in handy some day."_

" _Picking a pocket could come in handy?" he questioned as he snorted out a laugh._

 _She gave him one of her infamously coy looks beneath her eyelashes, "You'd be surprised the amount of illegal tricks and trades that could come in handy, even to the good guys."_

 _Present day..._

Needless to say, he'd never successfully pickpocketed Clint, although he had come damn close once. However he had gotten every other member of the team besides Natasha. He thought she was joking when she said it could come in handy one day but he was proven wrong in this very moment. He certainly never imagined that her teaching him how to pick a pocket would help him save her life.

Tony had located a scientist who worked in the Isla Verde facility that he bore a decent resemblance to and that left Bruce to get his ID badge, something that Tony seemed to find highly entertaining during their discussion of the plan. Fortunately it wasn't going to be a difficult task since the man he needed to steal the badge from was currently drunk in a bar. It took little to no effort for Bruce to walk past and swipe the badge from his jacket. He didn't even need to do some 'accidental bump and apology' as Natasha liked to call it.

Considering the scientist was working in a facility that was about to or had already been holding a world renowned spy and assassin captive, the man was rather lax about keeping his security badge close at hand. It was left clipped onto the white lab coat on the back of his chair and all Bruce had to do was walk past him and snatch it as he did so, even a child could have stolen the badge.

It was the waiting for Tony after he got the badge that was the hard part. He spent half the day worried about what they were doing to her this time, about whether or not she would even remember him when they got her out of there this time, or rather remember what little memory of him she now had of their few hours together. All he could think was that if he had just _told_ Natasha about The Hulk, told her that she could hardly put an indestructible green monster in danger, then maybe she would have stayed rather than run away.

Or maybe he would have scared her away faster.

Twenty-four hours ago he'd been living normally, or somewhat normally anyways, and he hadn't imagined that he would get dragged back into the lives of his former friends. One happenstance encounter of seeing Natasha's face in a crowded marketplace had changed all of that and Bruce sighed as he dredged his way up the ramp into the quinjet Tony had flown over with. Now he had both Tony and Natasha back in his life instantaneously and it wasn't their presence he would complain about but rather the circumstances in which they found their way back in.

Tony was standing there when he got on board and Bruce stared at him for a moment in silence before he made the joke, "The Quinjet? The UN didn't take that when they made you guys sign your lives over to them?"

"I borrowed it."

"Stole. You stole it," Bruce corrected with a laugh.

"Appropriated."

"Hijacked."

"Reallocated," Tony insisted and Bruce gave up as he released a chuckle. "The last six months have sucked. Glad to see you again, man," the billionaire finally admitted and Bruce was more than a little surprised when the man gave him a one-armed hug.

"Me too," Bruce admitted with smile and shake of his head.

Tony released him just as quickly as he embraced him, heading back to the cockpit to take off again.

"Good to see you again, Doctor Banner."

One thing Bruce had forgotten about, Tony's AI. Bruce chuckled after he jumped a little in reaction the the voice, "You too, FRIDAY."

"I watched a few of those videos from that place on the way here," Tony mentioned, "they're trying to wipe out every last bit of the Natasha we know, leave her as a blank slate—"

"As nothing more than a weapon..." and Natasha's words echoed in his head, when she asked him if she was nothing more than a weapon.

"Exactly," Tony agreed. "I accessed a few of their files but if I kept digging they were going to notice eventually and I didn't want to give them a heads up. But if they succeed in making her a blank slate and then getting her into a state of mind where she follows their every order, then they plan to inject her with a new variation of Steve's serum."

"They want to turn her into an actual weapon..." Bruce mumbled out.

Tony nodded and hummed his agreement, "One that they can control, except I don't think it's going to work. I don't care how much they think they've wiped her memories, she's always going to have memories about what they're doing to her to wipe those memories out..."

Bruce mulled that around in his own head for a moment but he wasn't quite sure he understood.

"Everything about Steve when he got injected with that crap was heroic and self-sacrificing, that's how he turned into some buff do-gooder on steroids. But you? You tried to remake what was used on him, but what were you filled with, Bruce?" Tony questioned.

He sighed a little as he answered that, "Anger. I was always angry..."

"And so a Hulk was born."

Bruce rubbed at his face as he took the seat beside Tony. "If all she's ever known is pain and they inject her with that..." he mumbled out.

"I don't even want to imagine what sort of abomination they'll wind up turning her into," came Tony's response.

Neither did Bruce.

"Alright, it'll only take an hour to get us there," Tony informed him, "remember that once we do, you'll have to do everything from the security office. I'll stay hovering over in stealth mode, just remember to lock every door and only open the ones that lead her to where you are. If I need to take over remotely then the bells and whistles are gonna go off and you two are gonna get caught in there."

"I know," Bruce assured him, "I can handle it."

"Well you already picked a pocket so what's a little breaking and entering and breaking out to add to the list of felonies?" Tony joked.

Bruce rolled his eyes but he smiled at the quip nonetheless.

"The things you'll do for a hot redhead."

"Tony!"

"What?" the other man shrugged as he flew the jet, "been there, done that, and would honestly do it all over again. Redheads will get you every time, Brucie my boy."

He groaned but he couldn't deny that he missed the antics of his best friend even if they were highly distasteful. "You're an ass," he reminded his friend with a chuckle.

"You love me," Tony insisted.

"Somebody has to."

"Hah!" Tony huffed out the laugh in an instant, "you haven't lost your thunder with the Banner Banter. Thank God." The look on the billionaire's face told Bruce he was about to make another remark and he certainly wasn't wrong, "Is that even a relative term anymore after we've met Thor and Loki? Maybe we should just thank Thor."

Bruce snorted immediately, "You'll give that man a bigger head than he already has if you start doing that."

"Can't be bigger than mine, mine's rather inflated," Tony pointed out.

"True but the world can only handle one Tony Stark, it definitely doesn't need the Nordic version," Bruce stated with a snicker, "better stick with thanking the usual God."

Tony shrugged before he inclined his head, "Fair enough." Bruce should have known that wouldn't be the end of the conversation, though he also knew Tony was doing it so not to leave him with his own thoughts for the entire trip. "So tell me, how does your 'Science over God' thing work after you've physically pummeled two Gods yourself?" came the sudden question.

Bruce rolled his eyes, "I'm not getting into that."

"C'mon, it's a totally valid question."

"One that I'm not answering," Bruce insisted despite the fact he was laughing at Tony's seriousness over the topic.

"Seriously? You can't avoid this forever," Tony warned him, "I'll get an answer."

Bruce shook his head and smiled before he answers, "Fine. You want an answer? They're aliens, not Gods."

Tony was silent for a moment before he commented, "Huh...hadn't thought about it that way." And then it got more ridiculous, "Do you think the Other Guy can breathe in space?"

"You've got to be kidding me..." Bruce grumbled out and the irony was that the Other Guy was grumbling in the back of his head as well.

"A debate for another day," Tony decided. Thankfully it was quiet for a few moments for Bruce to gather his thoughts and the billionaire's next comment wasn't ridiculous like all his previous ones, "I've missed this."

Bruce couldn't disagree. Tony's antics were one of the few things he had missed over the last two years. The other things tended to involve Natasha who had forcibly entered the smaller moments of his life. Watching movies, reading together in silence, having tea, or in the weirder moments; her teaching him how to pick pockets. "Me too," he finally agreed.

"So uh—seeing Nat again, how was that?" Tony questioned next.

He sighed a little as he mulled that over but the truth was that he never had much of a chance to dredge up the old feelings when he'd been with Natasha. "I don't know," he admitted, "I didn't have a lot of time to think about it and then when I did I realized it didn't matter. She had no idea who I was, who she was." He stared down at the floor and shook his head slightly before he spoke again, "Suddenly being mad didn't really seem all that important in the bigger picture of things."

"Yeah, didn't seem all that important to me either when I saw her on that call," Tony agreed with a somber voice, "then it all disappeared after I watched that first video."

"You think this is what they were planning to do to all of you?" Bruce questioned, "they had Barton and some of the others locked up before Steve went and broke them out. This is what they wanted to do to all of you, isn't it?"

Tony didn't look thrilled by the thought of it but he didn't disagree either, "Probably..." The billionaire heaved out a sigh, "You know, I really thought it was the right thing to do. Pretty sure Nat did too at first which shocked the shit out of me when she agreed with me and not Captain Wonderpants." He shrugged a little. "Those two were besties, you know?" he crossed his two fingers over each other, "tight, like this."

"So they were...uh..." Bruce couldn't even quite finish that statement.

"What? No, no," Tony told him with a wave of his hand, "Bruce that woman is carrying a torch for you whether she'd admit it or not. She's probably the only woman on this planet who didn't look twice at a man who was scientifically sculpted to be perfect." Bruce eyed him with uncertainty and Tony smirked as he spoke again, "I guess green is her favorite color as opposed to red, white or blue. I mean he had three color choices and you still won that fight, good on you."

Bruce snorted and shook his head, "That's hilarious, Tony."

Tony shrugged yet again before he said the one thing that made the most sense in the world, "Bruce, that woman had no memory of anyone or anything except pain and torture yet somehow, somewhere deep down, she believed all you wanted to do was help her."

He gave a tiny and sad laugh at his friend's comment, "Apparently she didn't believe it enough."

"Or she believed it enough to not want the only good person she'd met to get hurt," Tony corrected, "what would you have done in her place?" Tony paused like he was in thought before he snapped his fingers like he had some sudden and magnificent epiphany, "Oh right, you did the exact same thing. She got hurt trying to do the lullaby and you took off so that it would never happen again."

Bruce opened his mouth to disagree but no words came out and he quickly smacked his lips shut again.

"You weren't mad at her, you were scared," Tony stated next. His friend inclined his head a little before speaking again, "Bad things are going to happen whether you're there or not, Bruce. Current situation being the case and point."

"It was less running away from a chance she'd get hurt during the lullaby and more because..." Bruce paused as he tried to think of the right words but Tony finished it for him.

"You were afraid of what she was making you feel."

Bruce certainly couldn't deny that and he didn't, "Yeah and I guess the two of those combined just sort of...exploded at the end there." And then a worse thought crossed his mind as he rubbed at his face in frustration, "And now—now she may not ever remember any of it anyways."

Tony narrowed his eyes, released a sigh, then spoke, "We'll figure out how to jog her memory after we get her the hell out of there. From what I saw in the videos and what she told you, Nat had her memories up until a few days ago and then—nothing. The only thing more dangerous than someone who's in pain and _knows_ what's happening is someone who's in pain and is scared and confused."

"That's how she broke out..." Bruce mumbled.

"Yeah, suddenly Natasha became an unknown variable, because where the woman with her memories was clearly acting the way they expected her to act, the woman with no memories was going to act in ways they could never predict," Tony pointed out.

Bruce was almost grateful for the silence that ensued until Tony set the Quinjet down not far from the facility. The place was huge and Bruce knew this was going to be a hell of a lot more difficult than they had originally planned for.

"Here," came Tony's voice and Bruce watched his hand reach out, "ear piece. I'll stay in stealth mode until you get Natasha to you in the security office. After that I'll take over remotely to get you guys out the front door with no interruptions. That's the moment they'll know for sure they've got a security issue and that's only if they don't catch onto you earlier than that."

"I get it, I'll be careful," Bruce assured him.

"You better," Tony insisted, "if I have to go in for both of you then we're probably all going to wind up as science experiments for these assholes and I for one refuse to be saved by the perfect male specimen in red, white and blue tights."

Bruce snorted in an instant, "Fair enough." He put the ear piece into his ear before he stood up and clipped the badge to his shirt. "I'll call for you when it's time," he assured his friend as he lowered the ramp.

Tony was silent at first until Bruce was about to walk down the ramp, "Bruce?" When he looked back over at him Tony finally had on a more serious look, "Get her the hell out of there."

Thankfully it wasn't a very long walk from where Tony dropped him off to the facility. He kept his usual posture as he entered the building, the one where people didn't bother to pay him too much attention. The man at the desk took his badge, took a look at him, swiped it, then handed it back. Inside himself he was practically hyperventilating but he kept it together up until he heard the struggling. Sure enough he had to watch as two men held Natasha under her arms, who still had her hands cuffed behind her and her feet tied together, and they were forcibly dragging her down the hall with two more men behind them aiming guns at her.

There was a moment, just a small one, where Natasha struggled just a little less as she met his eyes and Bruce knew exactly what she was thinking; that he'd betrayed her, that he had never truly been helping her. There was nothing he could do about that yet and despite the thunderous noises the Other Guy was making in the back of his head, Bruce forced himself to mind his own business, to pretend like what he saw didn't bother him.

It was only a few seconds where she struggled less before she seemed to get more angry and struggle against the men who had a hold on her even more than she had been. Bruce flinched when she actually got an elbow into the nose of one because that crunch sounded absolutely painful. She managed to take down the guy holding her on the other side as well and Bruce realized her struggle and rage was because of him.

Natasha was pissed at him, she wanted to get to him and the horror that filled him in that moment was unlike any other. She wasn't going to trust him now, she thought he was the enemy. It also didn't change the fact that he was going to get her out of here. He grimaced when the other two men slammed her into the wall and her eyes were on Bruce himself again even if her captors didn't seem to notice. She seemed to notice something in his face, or in his eyes, because suddenly she looked at him and calmed slightly. The men holding her probably chalked it up to the fact they had a gun to her head but Bruce knew better. She was reading him and she had read the truth in him, that he was still helping her despite appearances. At least he hoped that was what she read from him, either that or she was trying to figure out how to get her hands on him to kill him. Regardless of that fact it was taking every fiber of his being not let the Other Guy out, Bruce kept pushing it all aside as he forced himself to look away and go into the security office.

The man inside was sipping coffee with his feet kicked up on the counter near the monitors and Bruce had to force a friendly tone to his voice, "She's scary, eh?"

"Friggin' terrifying, man...she's hot but terrifying as all hell," the guard responded with huff of a laugh. The man swiveled around in the chair and eyed him up but just like everyone else he saw nothing threatening, "Not s'pose to be in here, you know that."

"I'll clear out in a second...didn't want to be in the hall with them," Bruce assured him.

"Can't say I blame ya' there," the guard replied with a shrug, "I'll give ya' ten so they can clear her outta the halls, maybe twenty depending on how much fight she's got left in her today."

Bruce could barely manage an appreciative look but he thought he got it on his face, "Thanks, I really—I'm grateful."

He had to wait three minutes for the man to stop paying him any mind and the second that he did, Bruce slammed his head down on the counter twice and knocked him out cold. He was pretty sure the man was knocked out after the first blow but he did the second just for good measure. He had to ignore the fact he heard the Other Guy snickering in approval in his head.

Bruce locked the door to the security room and then looked to the monitors, following each one as Natasha was dragged into that very same room he had seen in the video Tony showed him. "Dammit..." he murmured out as he watched more men come into the room to lock her back down to that metal slate of a table.

It didn't hit him until just now, because Natasha had always been stronger than the average person, but it shouldn't take six men to hold down one woman who was _that_ small. "Tony..." he finally stated.

" _Yeah?_ "

"What if they've already done what they were trying to do to her?" he questioned his friend over the ear piece, "Six men can barely hold her down right now."

" _I've seen her take down a dozen men by herself, you've seen it too. She can use her body to take two men to the ground at the same time and right now she's pissed. One angry Natasha can definitely fight six idiots off."_

He supposed that was true enough. "She saw me," he told Tony, "and the way she reacted...I'm not sure she's going to trust that I'm still trying to help her now."

" _She will._ "

Bruce really hoped he was right. He had to close his eyes as all those metal bars came from the sides of the table and arched over to lock her down onto it. She wasn't wrong, she was strapped to that table in nothing but a bra and a pathetically skimpy pair of shorts and he was praying they would leave her alone in that room soon.

He had to watch them reconnect those needles into her temples and then poke and prod at her various injuries as she struggled against the metal bars and cursed them in Russian. It was frustrating, enraging, and he was never more grateful then the moment where the men finally left the room.

The second that her room and the halls leading from her to him were clear, Bruce didn't hesitate to lock everything down. Now it was time to hope this would go over without any issues.

* * *

Natasha had been trying to decide if she still believed Bruce was the friend he made himself out to be after the men left the room. She barely had time to think it over when the bars holding her down released suddenly and without warning. She sat up in an instant and looked around the room but there was nobody in the viewing room watching, nobody looking through the door, nobody in the room with her.

If this was some sort of test then she couldn't decide what it was for. Less than a minute later the red light over the door turned green and she narrowed her eyes before turning towards one of the cameras in the corner of the room. Normally the red light on it was steady but now it was blinking in random intervals. She tilted her head to the side slightly before she understood, or at least hoped she understood.

Bruce.

She wasn't sure if she believed he was truly trying to break her out or if this was some sort of sick joke these people were playing on her but she supposed she didn't have a whole lot to lose. And if it was some sick joke then at least she wasn't locked down and she could snap the neck of whoever was dumb enough to try and get in her way.

Natasha ripped the needle probes out of her temples and tossed them aside before sliding off the table. Her leg was killing her, her abdomen was on fire and her hand felt like it just might have been broken all over again but she moved to the door nonetheless. She paused with her hand on the handle before she looked back at the camera again. Finally she pulled it open, half expecting someone to be there trying to shove her back in.

But nobody was there.

The hall was silent and she looked in every directed before she saw the red light over on door turn green. A quick look at every other room told her she didn't have much of a choice except to follow the trail of unlocked doors so she went towards that one. Again she paused at the door and looked up at the camera before she pushed it open and went through into the next hall.

Natasha quirked an eyebrow up with uncertainty when the door immediately to her left lit up green, red, then green again. She caught on that whoever was behind this, likely Bruce, was telling her to get behind that door immediately. She shoved it open and quickly shut it behind her.

Within a minute she heard two voices, the voices of two men who had just put her in that room and were likely going back there now. She saw the light above her room turn back to green and this time she knew for certain Bruce must've been behind this. That was the hint to take those two out before they realized she wasn't in her room and she didn't hesitate now.

She shoved the door open, swiped the leg out from under the man closest before she grabbed the arm of the second and launched him over her shoulder and onto his back. She chopped him in the throat with her hand and watch him struggle to breathe before she slammed his head into the floor and quickly sat down on the first man she knocked down. She locked her arm around his neck before he could get to his walkie talkie and gripped as tight as she could, letting all the pain he put her through seep into the choke hold.

He stopped struggling a minute later and she glanced at the camera and nodded her head to the door. Sure enough it lit green again and she rolled both men into the room before closing the door on their unconscious bodies. This time a light lit on a door all the way down the hall and she went to it immediately.

Natasha slipped in and out of different doors and a few more hallways before a door opened and Bruce was standing behind it.

He spoke before she even had a chance to, "Natasha...I know what you thought when you saw me before." She stayed silent despite the desperate look on his face because even though she believed he meant well it didn't stop her from taking a step back when he stepped forward. "I know you believe me, if you didn't you wouldn't be backing away...you would have attacked me the second that door opened."

"You broke in here for me?" she finally questioned, "do you have any idea what they'll do to you when they catch us?"

"I'm not worried about that," he insisted, "and we have to go—we have to go right now..."

Natasha shook her head, "They'll kill you, Bruce...or they'll do to you everything that they've done to me."

She watched as he held his hand to his ear and frowned before he looked over at the monitors. "Yeah, Tony, I heard you," he grumbled out to nobody. She didn't move away this time when he stepped directly in front of her and she looked right into his eyes when he gripped her face on either side with his hands. "They can't hurt me," came his reassuring voice, "and I would never let them keep hurting you even if they _could_ hurt me." She opened her mouth to speak but he was already talking again before she could, "Tony's about to take over remotely to give us a clear path out, normally that would alert them that you're out but they've already figured that out."

"I don't understand why you're doing all this," Natasha admitted.

"Natasha, it doesn't matter why," he insisted, "we have to get the hell out of here right now."

Something in his voice finally broke her walls down and she nodded her head, letting him lead the way out. She still didn't trust him, not completely, but at the moment he was the only person she had met who didn't seem to want to hurt her and that had to count for something. They made it all the way to the front door of the place when Bruce came to a sudden stop with his hand on the door.

"What?" he grumbled out. The look on his face as he looked at the double doors that led to their escape and then the equally frustrated face he had on as he looked behind them in the direction they came from. "Dammit..." he growled.

"What is it?" she dared to ask.

"According to Tony, there's a good two dozen men outside that door waiting for us," Bruce informed her and she snickered because she couldn't believe she'd let him get her hopes up. "This isn't over," he told her the instant he heard her huff that laugh out.

She shook her head before she shrugged, "It really doesn't matter. I don't know why I thought I could trust you..."

Bruce pulled a face that told her whatever idea he had now, he wasn't a fan of, and she narrowed her eyes when he gripped her arms in his hands. "Natasha, you didn't trust me and we both know that but I'm asking you to right now," he told her, "I _can_ get you out of here but we've only got about ten minutes before they break through those doors behind us too..."

She wasn't sure she believed him this time but she asked the question anyways, "How?"

"I need you to trust me when I say I won't hurt you," Bruce told her quickly. He pulled the ear bud out of his ear and handed it to her, encasing her fingertips over it before he spoke again, "Tony can talk to you through that but when I open these doors you need to stay behind me, you understand?"

"No I—what are you talking about, opening the doors, are you insane? They'll shoot you the second that you walk out," she insisted and she knew her expression was far more confused than she liked.

Bruce chuckled in an instant, "I'm counting on it."

"You want them to shoot you? Bruce, I'm not so sure that I'm worth dying over," she told him with an exasperated breath.

"I'm sure," Bruce told her without hesitation. Both her eyebrows quirked up in an instant and he just smiled, "I won't get hurt, I'm sort of...bulletproof."

"Bulletproof?" she questioned, "what does that mean?"

"I really wish I had time to explain this to you. Just put that in your ear, Tony will talk you through this while I deal with—well...everyone out there," Bruce told her. She opened her mouth to object because even _she_ couldn't take out two dozen men at once and given the distaste she had seen on his face when he shot _one_ man, she didn't exactly have faith in his abilities here and now. Regardless, she put the ear bud into her ear anyways when Bruce gave her one arm a gentle squeeze, "Nat, remember to stay behind me...and remember that I won't hurt you." He unbuttoned his shirt and removed it, putting it over her bare shoulders as he shrugged, "I'm not going to need that."

She watched as he turned and shoved the doors open and she didn't take her eyes off of him as he stepped through them. Sure enough there _were_ two dozen men out there, maybe more, but Bruce kept walking forward anyways. The man was absolutely insane and she was about to try and get in front of him, hoping that maybe they wanted her alive as much as they seemed to before he ended up dying for her. Before she had a chance she froze, seeing the skin of his arms getting green—growing.

" _Don't freak out_."

Tony's voice came through the ear bud and she let out a breath she hadn't been aware she had been holding when _all_ of Bruce started to turn green and get larger. The muscles of his back bulging inhumanly.

" _Bruce sort of has another half inside of him, what you're about to see, we call The Hulk. Well, most people do. You've always just called him the Big Guy."_

The gunfire started the second Bruce was a foot taller than he had been before and she hadn't even realized that she had been backing away until her back hit the doors that had closed behind them. Suddenly he had to be almost eight feet tall and she stared in shock as he turned to look right at her. His enlarged green face looked enraged and she could hear the frustrated breath he took before he turned back to the men shooting.

Seconds later he bowled towards them and she watched with wide eyes as men were sent careening left and right while Bruce, or whatever Bruce was now, swatted them away like they were nothing but flies. The bullets hitting him only seemed to make him angrier and she stared as he held one man by the leg and repeatedly slammed him into the ground.

When a jeep pulled up with more men with guns, _that_ didn't stand much of a chance either. The Hulk took the body of the man he'd been using as a play toy and launched him hard enough that his already dead body went under the wheels of the jeep, the jeep flipped over and trapped all the men beneath it as The Hulk jumped a top it like it were a trampoline.

" _He uh—he has a few anger management problems,_ " Tony informed her, " _but he wasn't lying, Nat. He won't hurt you._ "

Her eyes were focused, honed in on Bruce's angry transformed self as he gave up crushing the jeep beneath him. He was stomping his way towards her and she pressed herself harder against the door. Then he was running at her and on impulse she crouched down, covering her face as though _that_ might protect her if he impaled her through the doors.

She only opened her eyes when she heard him connect with something, and then she realized it was actually someone. She turned her head and watched a man fly off to the side where The Hulk had smacked him to, a man who had apparently been coming up on her while she'd been too focused on watching The Hulk. This time he did reach towards her and she must have flinched because he pulled his hand back as though she had wounded him.

Natasha stared as he actually looked hurt by her reaction to him and then she stared in shock when she saw dirt and dust kick up behind him. He turned in curiosity but he didn't seem worried by whatever it was.

Suddenly the odd jet became visible and she watched as the rear hangar door opened. "Only me," Tony called out, though she supposed it was more for her benefit than the Hulk's because he didn't look ready to pounce like he had been with the soldiers before. "Well don't just sit there, get the hell in here before those idiots inside that building manage to override the rather fantastic hack I did on all their doors!" he yelled out next.

She went to get up when the sharp pain overrode all the adrenaline. She must have made a noise because The Hulk looked back over at her with some sort of mixed angry and worried face. She moved her hand to her side and felt the sticky warmth in an instant. When she looked down she saw what she already knew was there; blood and yet another bullet wound, though it was just a graze, nothing too bad. She heard Tony's vulgar commentary both out loud and in her ear when he noticed her wound as well. She supposed she must have taken a stray bullet at some point and just not noticed through all the adrenaline and shock of the moment.

 _Now_ it hurt.

Natasha watched as The Hulk stared at her bloodied hand with distaste as he reached towards her again. He almost daintily nudged her hand aside to look at it before he breathed heavily through his nose.

"C'mon Big Guy, get her in here so we can get the hell out of here!" Tony called out.

She didn't back away this time as he reached for her and she was surprised at just how gentle he actually was when he lifted her up and carried her into the hangar bay where Tony was waiting.

"Good thing I brought a Hulk-sized hatchback," Tony mumbled out.

She watched Tony close the hangar and then the Hulk set her down inside against the wall. He nudged her hand with his own twice but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what it was he wanted from her. "I don't—I don't understand what you want," she admitted to him. He huffed out a frustrated breath before he moved to the opposite wall and sat down. Something told her he was just a little miffed with her over it.

"Hey, Big Guy...don't hold it against her," Tony warned The Hulk and she felt the jet taking off, "she doesn't remember. It's not her fault."

The Hulk folded his arms with almost the same petulance of a child pouting and she stayed quiet on the opposite side of the jet, looking anywhere else but at him. She knew she must have offended him or upset him by not remembering, by not understanding what he wanted her to do.

The silence on the jet ensued for a good twenty minutes before Tony crouched down next to her, "Hey...I know that gunshot isn't even really bleeding now but I wanna clean off those weird little marks on your face."

He pointed at her temples and she shook her head, "No."

"Natasha..."

"No, I don't know you, I don't trust you," she insisted.

Tony was frowning, "Bruce trusts me..."

"I don't trust him either," she informed him as she shot him a dirty look. She heard The Hulk grunt in disapproval and she glanced over warily, "Why is he still...green?"

Tony stepped away from her and she was appreciative of that at least, "He's waiting for you."

"Waiting for me for what?" she dared to ask.

"Used to be your thing," Tony explained, "you were the only one who could change him back no matter what the situation was. I mean he'll change back himself eventually when he runs out of juice so...don't worry about it." She watched Tony head back over to the cockpit and he stopped by the Hulk and shrugged, "Sorry, buddy."

The Hulk just let out a frustrated snort.

He didn't change back for the entire four hour flight to wherever Tony had taken them and the silence that ensued during it had been uncomfortable and almost unbearable. She was staring at the ground in thought for so long that she almost jumped when she looked up and saw a giant green palm in front of her. The Hulk was sitting in front of her now and she was actually impressed by how silently he had managed to make that move from one side of the jet to the other.

"I still don't know what you want..." she told him again.

He looked a little more understanding this time and then he nudged her hand with his own before he held his hand palm out to her again.

"I'm sorry..." she murmured out in confusion.

He huffed out an annoyed breath before he nudged her hand again, then pressed both his hands together, then finally held his hand out to her again. This time she understood what he was trying to get her to do and she slowly raised her hand towards his. The flashes of imagery went through her mind the moment her fingertips touched his hand. Images of her holding her hand out to him, of him look at her as warily as she was looking at him now.

He moved his hand before she could press her palm to his completely and she stared at him in confusion when he instead flipped his hand palm up to her.

"I don't—now you're just confusing me again..." she told him with a frown.

He put his other hand palm up over the first before he removed it and nodded to her. She blinked a few times before she did the same thing he had just done, placed her hand palm up in his hand. This time the image that flitted through her mind was of him flopping his hand over onto hers. She looked up at him in awe as he pressed the index finger of his other hand at the top of her arm, slowly moving it downward.

She released the tiniest of breaths as she saw an image of her own fingertips running down his arm.

Finally both his hands encased her hand and images, or rather memories, flooded her head almost painfully. She sucked in a breath and squeezed her eyes closed as memories of Clint returned, of his family, of the Avengers...of—she opened her eyes wide in an instant and stared at the worried green face before her. He was sitting and it made it a hell of a lot easier for her to do what she wanted.

Natasha wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her cheek against his and hugged him for the first time. "Thank you, Big Guy..." she murmured out. Those enlarged arms encircled her in return and she was never more glad to see him in her life. Slowly she felt him shrinking against her and when she opened her eyes, her arms were wrapped around Bruce rather than the Big Guy. He was breathing heavily and Natasha held onto him for several more minutes until he finally seemed to be breathing normally again.

She could have counted on the fingers of one hand the amount of people that could have broken into that facility and broken her out. Bruce and Tony didn't even rank anywhere near the top of the list of people she thought could have done it, and though she was eternally grateful, she was actually more impressed by what they accomplished. In fact it had barely even been Tony's doing and she would have believed he could do it before he ever believed that Bruce could. Bruce. Soft-spoken, self-loathing Bruce Banner had saved her from becoming a mindless slave of a weapon again when he had every right to hate her down to his very core. Although she certainly would now that he had done so for her, she wasn't sure at all if she would have done the same for him if he had broken her trust the way she had with his.

"Bruce..." she murmured out, pulling out of the embrace just slightly. When she did so he looked up at precisely the same second and suddenly they were so close, their faces accidentally, inadvertently and unexpectedly _so close_ that their lips practically touched.

Bruce froze and she did, too. There was a hair's breadth of distance between them, a sliver of a gap. Barely anything. _Nothing._ Despite the shock of it, he didn't move away and neither did she. She couldn't breathe in that moment, the air locked into her chest and she couldn't think above the sudden racing of his heart, the heart that her hand was currently resting atop of. A flush of heat was rolling over her in a pleasant, exciting, _enthralling_ wave and she could see more of him that she had never noticed before now. How the lines of his face that normally showed his age weren't there as they looked into one anothers' eyes, how despite the fact that he should hate her, he could look at her now with such adoration and caring. How depthless his eyes were, not just a simple brown but rather _many_ shades of brown, an almost endless sea of warmth.

The end of her nose was nearly against his. The skin of his face was covered with untrimmed facial hair, a slightly growing beard that was raggedy and that her other hand was currently resting on. She had to admit, she actually found his haggard appearance more attractive than the clean cut version she had first met years ago.

Her lips inched ever closer to his. She was going to kiss him. Hell, she _wanted_ to kiss him more than anything. Her eyes flooded with desire and she could see the same in his in that very moment. She was _certain_ that she was going to do it. Except she didn't want to kiss him. She wanted _him_ to kiss _her_ this time and instead the moment lingered. She could feel the warm pulse of his shallow breaths on her lips, the fire in his eyes a tangible, powerful thing as they searched hers. There was something else in them now, though. Fear. Doubt. _Vulnerability._ She hesitated and uncertainty devoured her desire.

She didn't kiss him. She jerked away at the last second and that tentative moment ended harshly. She looked away, refusing to let him know that the fear and doubt in his eyes hurt her more than anything that the Germans could have done to her. The heat vanished instantaneously and she moved her back against the wall again, letting the coolness seep into the space that was now between them.

"Natasha..." he whispered her name this time but she didn't dare look at that fear and doubt, not again, not until his hand came to rest beneath her chin to gently angle her face back into looking at him. Both of those emotions were gone now and in their place was worry, worry for her if she had to hazard a guess, especially when the fingertips of his other hand brushed over the blood encrusted indentation over her left temple. "You remember, don't you?" he finally dared to ask her.

"Yeah," she admitted with the smallest nod.

The smallest sigh of relief left Bruce's lips and he rested his forehead against her own. "I don't hate you, Nat..." came the reassurance he had given her before when she'd had no memories, "I could never hate you."

Natasha huffed out a laugh that dripped with sadness and self-loathing. "I know. That's because unlike me, you're actually a good person. I would hate me," she informed him as she closed her eyes, "I do hate me."

The warmth of Bruce's mouth met hers when his lips slanted over her own. It was an instant balm to her aching soul and her own lips moved against his without hesitation. It was small, simple, and chaste. It was so unlike the urgency she had kissed him with in Sokovia, an urgency she had felt because she knew she was betraying the trust he had so mistakenly put in her, urgency because she thought she wouldn't have another opportunity to ever do it again.

"What was that for?" she finally dared to ask when their lips parted.

Bruce's chuckle was even more of a relief. "It was about two years overdue..." he explained afterwards and she couldn't help the way the corners of her lips lifted.

"Bruce...how the hell did you get in that place?" she questioned after a few seconds of silence between them.

He looked a little sheepish now as he smiled at her, "I picked a scientist's pocket and took his ID badge."

Natasha snorted out a laugh before she could contain herself. "You actually did that?" she asked in disbelief, "for me?"

"I'd do a lot of things for you," came an unexpected admittance from him. It stunned her and she gripped his face between both her hands and pressed her lips to his again just on principle alone.

A throat cleared and Natasha, along with Bruce, glanced over at Tony in response. "If you two are done nauseating me, the safe house for you both is waiting outside," he informed them.

"For us both?" she dared to ask.

"Come on," Bruce told her, standing up and reaching a hand out.

She took his hand and pushed herself up while he pulled her up. She followed behind Bruce before she stopped to look at Tony.

"When did you realize what they wanted the Accords for, Nat?" Tony asked her when she stopped to look at him.

She heaved out a sad little chuckle, "Not until it was almost too late, not until the airport." She gave the barest shrug, "Even then I wasn't sure but I was more sure of that than I was of us fighting each other to the death. I wasn't going to say anything until I knew for certain...and even if I had tried to tell you guys, I'm not sure anyone was really going to listen under the circumstances."

"And when you knew for sure they took you before you could warn any of us," Tony finished.

Natasha gave the smallest of nods, "Yeah."

"Sorry for being an ass," he offered up with a smirk.

She snickered a little at the apology. "I should have just told you back in New York before I left," she admitted her own fault in that matter. She gave the tiniest sigh before she realized something, "You're not staying?"

"With the two of you? In a safe house?" Tony questioned, "No. Hell no to be precise. The two of you have these pent up little feelings slowly worming their way out. I'm not living with that."

Bruce was chuckling and Natasha could resist the smile.

"I'll come visit when I'm in the mood for being nauseated with cuteness."

She shook her head with amusement before she leaned forward and pressed her lips to Tony's cheek, "Thanks for the rescue."

The billionaire narrowed his eyes as he made his quip, "Yeah, yeah. Get out of here, unlike Bruce there _are_ some things I won't do for you."

Natasha smirked as Bruce gave his friend a hug before she followed the scientist out of the Quinjet. There was a tiny little villa awaiting them, the brightest green grass surrounding it in every direction with nothing else around for miles. She dared to look back at Tony at the top of the ramp, "Where the hell are we?"

"Hey, the way I see it if you can't figure it out? Neither can they!"

She chuckled as the ramp went up and she glanced back at Bruce, "You know I'm not asking you to stay with me, right? You could go with Tony, or I can go somewhere else—"

"You'll never have to ask me to stay," Bruce insisted with a small smile, "you offered to run with me two years ago. Maybe this is where we were running to..."

Natasha gave him a genuine smile this time, "Maybe it was."

* * *

 **There we go. Super long chapter to end the story. Honestly should have split it in half or something, haha. Oh well...too late. :) Hope you enjoyed the story!**


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